POWER LIFTER OR POWER MOM: WHY EVERYONE SHOULD TAKE CREATINE

When I was in high school, creatine was all the rage. Everyone knew about it, but nobody really understood it. It felt like a secret cheat code. A shortcut to getting big. We saw these increases in strength and recovery, so naturally, we equated them to legal steroids. We also noticed anger in those who used creatine, or as we saw it —“roid rage”.

Turns out, creatine is just an effective supplement. The gains were real and the anger — that was just teenage hormones. So, this is a letter to my younger self to explain why creatine isn’t like steroids, it is actually more like a reliable romantic partner— always there for you when you need it most.

SO HOW DOES CREATINE WORK?

One of the biggest players in the availability of creatine today is Yellapragada Subbarow, he was a doctor trained in India who came to America in 1922. He ended up becoming a biochemist who did purification of chemicals in cells. Subbarow purified a molecule called ATP, the source of energy in all living beings (ATP carries chemical “energy” in the cell), and another called creatine, the energy carrier in muscle cells.1 In his purification work, Subbarow actually purified the two molecules that are working together in our muscles to help us become the athletes we are today.

For short bursts of energy, skeletal muscles rely on ATP stores and an additional reserve of the energy storage compound, creatine, to regenerate ATP rapidly.2Creatine is that reliable partner we all need to lean on. It helps gives your muscles that crucial energy they need to keep going hard. Creatine occurs naturally in your body, so supplementation only intensifies its regenerative effects.

“When a muscle is contracting against a load, the cycle of making and breaking actin-myosin bonds must continue in order to prevent the loads from stretching the muscle. The stimulation is like rowing a boat upstream. You cannot maintain your position relative to the stream bank by just holding the oars against the current; you have to keep rowing.”3

Disregarding the technical portions about actin and myosin, who knew you could find such poetic statements in biology textbooks? Analogous to humans dancing through life, our muscles need to have a balance. The need to push – reload – and push again. Creatine is there to help you fight the current. It is like a loyal lover, there to pick you up when you’re down. When you need to encouragement; when you start letting the current take you backwards.

When it comes to your muscles, they aren’t all created equally. One of the biggest differences is slow twitch versus fast twitch muscles. The differences between the muscles is the way the muscle utilizes energy sources. Slow twitch muscles go through a more oxidative process (uses oxygen that you breathe to produce energy) that takes longer – hence the name, slow twitch. An example of an activity that utilizes these muscles are long-distance runners. Fast twitch, however, is for short, powerful bursts of energy when you need to produce a lot of force immediately – sprinting and weightlifting are good examples of those activities where fast twitch muscles dominate.4,5

Not all skeletal muscles are alike, and a single muscle often contains more than one type of fiber, so while there are some that are most likely born to perform in their sport with high proportions of one type of fiber — the Usain Bolts and Michael Phelps of the world – the rest of us are hybrids and therefore could use creatine to optimize our potential.6

Whether we are pushing ourselves to finish a workout strong or lift grocery bags with our biceps – we are using those muscles that rely on creatine. It is a supplement that is widely beneficial for us in a plethora of ways – even for those of us who aren’t meat heads or Jamaican sprinters. Creatine has shown through a lot of research to help increase muscle mass and enhance performance, not only for younger athletes, but also very beneficial for older people and those are physical impaired.7,8,9

Also, an insufficient amount of creatine is seen in certain brain disorders. Research has also shown that it could be of particular benefit to vegetarians and their brain health because of the low amounts of creatine they receive through their diet.10

WHY GENIUS CREATINE?

When you are in a relationship, you never want to settle for something less than you deserve. While there are cheaper options out there, we like to think of Genius Creatine as the best, most potent, highest quality option of the creatine field. We have loaded it with three different forms of creatine to enhance its impact in your muscles. A combined total dose that totals 5 grams of high quality creatine.

One of those is 3 grams of CreaPure ®. This is the ultimate form of creatine. Pure creatine monohydrate – this is the most widely studied form of creatine. It is proven to be safe in healthy adults and effective in increasing muscle mass and boosting performance.11,12,13 In addition, there appears to potentially be benefits to brain health.14

The other two forms are is 1.5 g of creatine HCL and 500 mg of Creatine MagnaPower ® While Monohydrate is the most common form, there is some that believe HCl (which stands for hydrochloride) is better in terms of bioavailability.15 So we included 1.5 grams to saturate those muscles with the energy booster that is creatine. Creatine MagnaPower is a form of creatine with a magnesium molecule added. This addition has been shown to further increase the effects of creatine in terms of strength gain and reducing negative side effects like water retention.16

We didn’t stop there, we also put in 1.6 g of Beta Alanine in the form of SR CarnoSyn ®. As I’ve mentioned, creatine is most effective in short interval training, so we’ve included Beta alanine as a way to help improve all skeletal muscular endurance. Especially SR CarnoSyn ® which is another trademarked ingredient included because of the science shown that it works: muscular endurance, delayed muscular fatigue and increased strength.17,18

Finally, we sprinkled in 25 mg of AstraGin ®, a potent nutrient absorption enhancer. We know that every last milligram of Genius Creatine is going to go where we want it, instead of just becoming expensive pee.

All of this delivered to you in a delicious, all natural green apple flavor. Let creatine be the support you need to achieve your goals and Genius Creatine is the luxury supplement that your body craves.

It’s not steroids, it’s science. For the smart way to supplement, choose Genius.

#SupplementSmarter #BeGenius

Author: Anye Turner

Anye Turner is a Research Associate and Brand Manager for The Genius Brand. He has a B.Sc. in Biology with a minor in English from Western Washington University. He was a student-athlete at Western and played professional basketball in Germany. Currently a frequent user of Genius supplements and a bookworm. You can contact Anye at at@supplementsmarter.com

Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Scribner, 2011.